Christmas is my favourite time of year, and this year was even more special because I got to…
Times visited: 1 (1 day in 2017)
Cities visited: Amsterdam
I don’t actually know how many times I went to the Netherlands as a child, as my family often took the ferry from Hoek van Holland to England. But the first (and so far only) time I’ve been there as a tourist was in the summer of 2017, on a 1-day stopover in Amsterdam en route to Luxembourg.
I’ve never really prioritized the Netherlands as I always thought of the country as similar to Denmark but with less natural beauty. But I had heard so many good things about Amsterdam so I decided to give it a shot. After all, it was much cheaper to get to Luxembourg by flying into Amsterdam and taking a night bus!
I was quite good at touristing in Amsterdam. I got up early to start my 8-hour sightseeing trip around the center of the city with a long list of things that I wanted to see, although I had to cut it down to sights that were nearby as I had such limited time.
I walked and walked and walked, finding one pretty view over the famous canals after the other. Did you know that there are more than one hundred kilometres of canals with 2,500 bridges and 90 islands in the city!? Venice, move over!
I went on a canal cruise that took me all around the city center and through some of the most scenic canals. And yes, I did also visit the Red Light District and no, I didn’t buy any weed.
I know it’s not fair to judge a city after just one day, but I just didn’t love Amsterdam as much as I thought I would. To be honest, I couldn’t help comparing it to Copenhagen and that just isn’t a fair comparison!
